This is my story

Sharon Bollum,

Founder & Producer

A message from the founder, Sharon Bollum, explaining the story behind 40 churches in 40 weeks™.

I love God! Being called to serve Him was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me other than getting married and having children.

Like everyone in full-time ministry I got tired sometimes, but I never got tired of serving. I would do just about anything to help someone personally connect with the Love of Christ and become a member of His Church.

Each staff I’ve been a part of worked very hard to create an engaging weekend service with great music, relevant talks and lots of social opportunities to help people feel like they belonged. Our job was to bring people to faith and help them become mature believers who were fully devoted followers of Christ. There wasn’t much we wouldn’t do to attract and keep more people. In fact, so much energy was put into executing programs to attract and serve the people who came that most of the team was too exhausted to notice whether or not what we were doing was achieving what we set out to do. At the end of the day, did we succeed?

After nearly two decades I began to question if all our efforts were actually causing the people who came to church to grow spiritually. Sure, some people don’t come often enough to learn much; but what about those who were there every week who weren't any more like Christ this year than last year? What were we doing wrong?

I began to look at other churches and discovered the dilemma is rampant in our Christian Community.

Had we become so concerned with keeping people from leaving in search of a bigger, better church with more bells and whistles that we focused more on serving them rather than teaching them how to become better servants?

I believe, in many cases, the answer is yes.

It doesn’t matter how small, big or popular a church is, if the Christians within it aren’t growing spiritually their lives are no better than they were before they met Jesus. Their confession of faith will be virtually meaningless to an unbelieving world.

Current statistics suggest Christians are just as depressed, just as dishonest, get divorced just as much and commit suicide nearly as often as non-Christians. Why?

Far too many Christians walk in Spiritual poverty.

Are all churches the same? Of course not. Are some better than others at leading Christians to grow spiritually? You bet. What makes them different? That's the question I set out to answer in my journey across the United States. I discovered there truly are patterns and practices that cause believers to become followers.

I want Christians to understand their church is meant to be the launching pad for their life in Christ, not a landing place for people who think they have learned as much as they need to know to get from here to heaven.

We have become weak and ineffective in our mission to impact the world for the cause of Christ.The poor health and reputation of the Christian community has become our greatest obstacle to reaching our society.

Can we change it? YES! Easily.

We have to talk about 'What Is' before we can reach for 'What Could Be'.

I hope you'll consider joining the journey and helping me to raise the bar on what it means to be a Christian.

I pray God will bless us as we strive to bring honor to His Church and glory to His name!